United Nations system

In accordance with Resolution 64/289 adopted by the UN General Assembly on July 2, 2010… UN Women operate as part of the resident coordinator system, within the United Nations country team, leading and coordinating the work of the country team on gender equality and the empowerment of women, under the overall leadership of the resident coordinator.

In line with its mandate, UN Women Iraq plays a coordinating role within the UN Country Team to ensure that gender is not only mainstreamed but also the object of focused initiatives by our UN partners. Furthermore, UN Women Iraq has been promoting a number of UN joint advocacy initiatives and joint programmes to address gender equality and empowerment of women as follows:

• UN Women has been closely engaged in the review of gender mainstreaming within the Common Country Analysis (CCA).
• UN Women Iraq Country Office has been part of efforts to develop the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) through its active participation in its four Priority Working Groups.
• UN Women continues to work towards the realization of Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5), which aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, and all of its 10 targets in order to contribute to the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals agenda.
• UN Women continues to lead the UN Country Team (UNCT) Gender Task Force aiming to develop comprehensive joint programmes to address the needs of Iraqi women and girls.
• UN Women is also responsible for compiling and consolidating all UN agencies’ inputs into the UNCT CEDAW shadow report.
• UN Women has been leading inter-agency efforts to celebrate relevant international events, such as the International Women’s Day and the 16 Days of Activism, among others. In parallel, ICO continues to support other agencies in marking international days relevant to them, in a bid to highlight gender in marking these days.
• UN Women has been utilizing it specialized capabilities to provide technical gender expertise to UNCT and all relevant committees and working groups.
• More recently, in the wake of the new coronavirus pandemic, UN Women has remarkably contributed to the “Socioeconomic, Post-COVID-19 Recovery Strategy”, led by UNDP. UN Women has been the main contributor of the gender chapter, in addition to playing the key role in mainstreaming gender in all the strategy. Within the same context, UN Women produced a Guidance Note on the COVID-19 response, aiming at providing specific actions for the engagement of the government, the civil society and the international community, including UN agencies.
• UN Women Iraq is also an integral part of the UN’s Strategic Communication Group which works to coordinate UN communication activities on various issues and shed light on UN activities in Iraq.